Managing rentals
See who rented a title, how long they have left, and give money back when you need to.
Once a title is published, every rental fans buy lands on that title's Rentals tab. It is the screen a support question ends on: how long has this person got, did their payment go through, can I refund them.
Opening the list
- Go to Films then Titles.
- Open a title.
- Click the Rentals tab. The tab shows the count in brackets, so you can see the total without opening it.
The list is paged, newest rentals first.
What each row tells you
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Fan | The email address on the account that rented. |
| Window | A badge for where the rental stands, plus a full sentence underneath. |
| Paid | The amount actually charged, or Free for a free window. |
| Bought | When the payment went through. |
A rental is always for the whole title, so there is no "what they rented" column. Renting a series buys every episode of it on one clock.
The window states
The badge is the short version and the sentence beneath it is the part you act on.
- Awaiting payment. The purchase started but the payment has not completed.
- Not started. Paid for, never opened. The sentence gives the deadline: "Not played yet. Must start by" and the date. That deadline is the shelf life you set on the title.
- Active. They are inside their window. The sentence says "Active until" and the exact moment it ends, which is the answer to nearly every question a fan will email you.
- Expired. Either the window ran out after they started, or they never pressed play and the shelf life passed. The sentence says which.
- Refunded. With the date it was refunded.
- Revoked. With the date and, where there is one, the reason.
Filtering
The dropdown above the table narrows the list to Awaiting payment, Paid, Refunded or Revoked. Choose All rentals to go back.
Why there is no expired filter
A rental expires by the clock running out, not by anything changing on the row. Expired rentals sit under Paid, and the window column tells you they have run out.
Issuing a refund
A Refund button appears on any paid rental that actually took money. Free rentals have nothing to give back.
- Click Refund on the row.
- Choose a reason: Requested by customer, Duplicate charge, Fraudulent, Goodwill, or Other.
- Leave the amount as it is for a full refund, or lower it for a partial one.
- Add a note if it helps you remember later.
- Confirm.
The money goes back through your connected payment account.
A full refund also ends the rental
Refund the whole amount and playback stops for that fan. A partial refund deliberately does not cut them off, because a goodwill half-refund is an apology, not a repossession.
The same row, from the fan's side
The row you are reading has a matching page in the fan's account, called My rentals, showing the same rental with the same time left and a button straight into it. So when somebody emails asking how long they have, you are both looking at the same number.
A few things about that side are worth having ready:
- Their window starts the first time they press play, not when they pay.
- One rental covers a whole series, including episodes you release later while their window is still running.
- A rental plays in one place at a time. A fan watching on a second screen stops the first one, with a button to take it back.
- An ended rental stays in their list with a Rent again button rather than disappearing.
The full journey is on what fans see.
A window you have already sold is never cut short
Unpublishing a title, archiving it, retiring a rental window, or turning film rentals off for your account entirely never ends a window a fan has already paid for. They keep watching until their own clock runs out.
The two exceptions are the deliberate ones: archiving an individual episode pulls it from a series immediately, including for fans mid-rental, and a full refund ends the rental it refunds.
Keeping an eye across every title
The Titles list gives you the totals without opening anything. Each row ends with the rental count for that title, so you can see at a glance which of your films are actually moving.
For the money side, head to income, where rental revenue sits alongside everything else you sell.